The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[polkablues]

I guess the biggest question is - after you become an established 'arthouse' director how do you not fall into a rut by exploring similar themes and using similar camera work and actors, AND who would be the best example of someone who has not (other than PT as suggested)?

Aronofsky, maybe.

[Gold Trumpet]

Well, the "rut" of exploring similar themes and using the same conventions is a good thing. Filmmakers should explore personal conventions which could constitute a style for more than one or two films. That's healthy to me. I think the discussion idea here seems to be based on whether or not the style of Wes Anderson is really that redeemable over time. I didn't think it was then and I have seen the Royal Tennebaums again and it's even worse today for me, but I don't think it is uncommon for people to gravitate to a filmmaker in their youth and find their perceptions have changed over time. I imagine some of you may still like Royal Tennebaums even if you find his later efforts disappointing, but I doubt many people will like it with the same enthusiasm they originally had. I think Wes Anderson has a trendy style and it's being reflected. Even though New Feeling may disagree, it's not being a hater to objectively go back and reexamine your development with a filmmaker and come to less than satisfactory conclusions.

[bigideas]

I guess the biggest question is - after you become an established 'arthouse' director how do you not fall into a rut by exploring similar themes and using similar camera work and actors, AND who would be the best example of someone who has not (other than PT as suggested)?

Aronofsky, maybe.

I've never been crazy about his films, so I can't really speak on him. I get him and R(ichard) Kelly mixed up all the time.

I also wonder how differently we would view prior directors like Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, had we actually been alive during their formative filmmaking years - it could all be said of what we said about Wes - same actors, camera moves, themes, etc. We (or in general and not necessarily me) say this now about Woody because he is still making films.

[Gold Trumpet]

I also wonder how differently we would view prior directors like Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, had we actually been alive during their formative filmmaking years - it could all be said of what we said about Wes - same actors, camera moves, themes, etc. We (or in general and not necessarily me) say this now about Woody because he is still making films.

Exactly. The Miles Davis way of constantly changing your interests and approach is rare. We have to examine the formalities for what they are and find out if they are redeemable to how we see films. Wes Anderson made a transition between Bottle Rocket and Royal Tennebaums and the latter is a full development of a style and an approach, but he has only made 3 films within that realm. He's still young so if you think there is some merit within the approach, you have to be honest about what your misgivings are instead of just say he's not doing enough to change it up. There has to be an admittance to the limitations of the style or the film's rendering of it instead of a bogus claim to say the filmmaker just needs to do more to change. Compared to Hal Ashby and other filmmakers Wes Anderson holds up on a pedestal, his approach is much more developed and lucid in being a unique style. Let's start examining the style for what it is.

[Captain of Industry]

I guess the biggest question is - after you become an established 'arthouse' director how do you not fall into a rut by exploring similar themes and using similar camera work and actors, AND who would be the best example of someone who has not (other than PT as suggested)?

Aronofsky, maybe.

Gus Van Sant for sure.  I just rewatched Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Paranoid Park, and Milk, and what is significant about Van Sant is that he continues to explore some of the same people and themes while growing stylistically as an artist and filmmaker.  His vision has grown deeper, and so too have his characters.

Maybe the thing with Anderson is it's difficult to penetrate the external method and locate the internal journey.  Because I think it's there, but in a lot of ways his approach is distracting in evaluating the emotional trajectory.  Why I prefer his later films is because you can really start to sense the wounded ego battling between fantasy and reality, and he now plays emotions on a minor key compared to the grand gestures of his earlier films.  I'm talking about the emotions of his characters, not his camera.  And it's difficult not to confuse the two.

I feel more deeply connected to Zissou and the Darjeeling brothers than I do any of the Tenenbaums.  He uses the narrative material in these later films as a shorthand broadening of the emotional complexities of his characters - and I find them more married together, as P says, then in Tenenbaum, which seemed to juggle style and character.

Which is essentially what PT has begun to do as well, and why some critics refer to the modern brand of American filmmaking as solipsistic.  You can't extract a PT character and place her in another film - the character belongs to the film, and you can't know the character without experiencing the art of the film.  This is the same route Anderson has taken.

[Alexandro]

Personally, I don't mind when a particular director has a "style" and uses it over and over. That's an intrinsic value in most filmmakers. You know what you will get with Michael Mann for example, or Scorsese. They evolve, yes, but their fingerprints still hold the film together. Or Altman, or even PTA, who really has not changed THAT much, he just has chosen to flex different muscles depending on the story he's telling.

Wes Anderson is kind of like fellini, bergman or woody allen, but just like with those guys, you can express an opinion on wether one of their films worked or didn't. I don't think Wes Anderson "lost" anything or is victim of his own style or whatever, I think zissou and darjeeling are not very good films. I'm not being a hater just for being a hater, i OWN zissou man, I own the damn thing. I liked it back when I saw it on the big screen, and found and still find a lot to admire. Yet the film feels flat, it's all intentions and no real accomplishments. This is of course my personal opinion, but I found it to be trying to be funny and being unfunny, trying to be moving and being unmoving, trying to be all sorts of things and being none of them.

Back to the fellini and bergman and allen comparison, none of these guys were ever accused of having dried up their creative well by their fourth fucking movie, the reason being they were proving film after film, for DECADES, that they creative well was far from being dry. really, check out bergman's or fellini's first four film. check our allen's firs four films, those guys were stretching their shit by the minute AND making good movies that worked on their own merits, without being "a film by..."

And sorry New Feeling, but PTA has clearly shown himself to be a much more promising filmmaker than anyone else his age around in the last 15 years, Tarantino and Wes Anderson certainly included.

[pete]

I really think it's much simpler than that.  Wes's style had a wide appeal when it was first introduced, but then a majority of the people have lost interest, while Wes himself has not.  Then he works with Noah Bambauch who really has no interest in making accessible films - not in terms of sophistication, but just in terms of more universal stories.  His first three films were about capturing something more universal - loss of innocence and all that, but his latter three movies were much more specific and were asking the viewers to root for characters who were piled on with idiosyncrasies.
at the core of Wes Anderson's movies, all of his heroes were incredibly sad.  they were people who grieved privately, put on ridiculous personas for the world, and get ridiculed for failing to hide behind the forged identities.  for me, the melancholy never feels cheated; Wes seems to have based all of his heroes' actions around these feelings.  However, they could get convoluted and involved, and rob these emotions of their raw powers.  that's my defense of his style and his stories.  as boring as they have become for certain people, I'll dispute that they're empty or shallow.  I think his embracing of the privileged demographic is shallow and certainly not as interesting as woody allen or oscar wilde's works, but I really do find sincere melancholy in his work that remains very appealing to me.

[Alexandro]

Yes I just have never accepted the idea that anderson's movies have suddenly "become" shallow, he's just too smart and too interesting as an artist for that. my beef with the films is not with the content or the ideas but with the execution which in my case develops into the frustrating experience of watching a comedy and find that every joke is miscalculated and poorly delivered, staged and edited. and I think that has a lot more to do with why people are tuning out from some of his films rather than their unlikeable characters, which has always been one of his strongest points.

mr. fox made me laugh a lot and had me smiling from start to finish and really that's all I needed to recover the faith. if he can still make them funny or moving he can keep doing the same shit for 40 years.

[socketlevel]

style is the composite of so many things. 90% of Wes Anderson's style i have no problem with and feel is as effective as it was the first time i saw bottle rocket.

we need to make that distinction because my gripe is with his art direction, i feel it robs attention away from the good stuff because it's so loud. all i see is art direction now. so i disagree with most of the posts that say 'same old same old' (even though i might have said that in the past), i think if Wes made a film with the same minimal art direction as with rushmore or bottle rocket I'd be way more into his films then i am currently.

the 'same old, same old' reaction i have would be referencing his work from life aquatic onward. the silly childlike art choices he made in rushmore came from the characters.  the crudeness to the art was cute because it was Max's version of the world (to a much lessor extent you could say this also exists in Royal T.). with his contemporary work the characters live within this art directed world, which is not explained anymore. it's almost like the newer films are the plays that max was putting on. the audience laughed at rushmore as an abstraction of the character's personality and playful approach to derivative fantasy. with the most recent wes anderson films the audience is laughing at the established world. Wes Anderson has become max fisher.

[Pas]

it's almost like the newer films are the plays that max was putting on. the audience laughed at rushmore as an abstraction of the character's personality and playful approach to derivative fantasy. with the most recent wes anderson films the audience is laughing at the established world. Wes Anderson has become max fisher.

yep, that's pretty much it.

[bigideas]

i think if Wes made a film with the same minimal art direction as with rushmore or bottle rocket I'd be way more into his films then i am currently.

Wasn't a lot of this stripped away in Darjeeling?

[socketlevel]

i think if Wes made a film with the same minimal art direction as with rushmore or bottle rocket I'd be way more into his films then i am currently.

Wasn't a lot of this stripped away in Darjeeling?

yes good point. just so you know i'm not back peddling i'mma quote a conversation from the mr. fox thread

I absolutely loved this. Me and Wes had a falling out with Darjeeling,

Funny i had a falling out with life aquatic, and darjeeling i came back in the fold a bit.

and it was for this reason you state.

however, it can't be argued that even though stripped back it would be about on par with royal T. still not as minimal as rushmore or bottle rocket. it's sad but in the case with wes anderson, i might just like his stuff more when when he's on a tight budget. something he can't help (and probably hates) is ironically making a better movie by my tastes.